


Road Story

by DeanRH



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Wings, M/M, Melancholy, Road Trips, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 04:44:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17542910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanRH/pseuds/DeanRH
Summary: The Winchesters live their own road story, one of many millions in American history. Castiel is witness to it all.





	Road Story

Tires rumbled along the black surface of the highway, a ribbon twisting through the pines. The roar of the engine in the great black car echoed throughout the wilderness; people heard it coming long before they saw it.

An odd choice, for men who preferred secrecy and subterfuge; a car that would stand out anywhere, its long steel body gleaming in the afternoon summer sunlight as if in defiance of their clandestine lives.

No one knew their names. Most of those who had known them were long dead. Still they kept the vigil, committed to a code of honour no one was around to admire. They, like their car, symbols of an Americana that was fast fading into history. An American Gothic fairytale that no one would ever hear. 

Two brothers who had traveled to the lands of death and back again, who had seen hell and heaven in all their antiseptic glory, who had been prisoners and torturers in hell, hanging on to the tatters of goodness in their souls.

And their angel friend, trenchcoat swirling behind him as he walked beside them in their loneliness, who could tell you that the soul of one of them shone brighter than any human soul he had known. Despite the taint of the Pit, despite his hedonism, despite it all, the man's soul glowed green and gold. The Righteous Man, incorruptible. 

The angel would protect them all the days they walked this Earth, with the blue of his eyes, the blue that bleeds from his hands and his mouth, the sharp point of his blade. Castiel, warrior angel of the Lord and Heaven's greatest strategist, was the Winchesters' guardian angel.

Sam, the boy with the demon blood, and Dean, the Righteous Man, whose soul shone so pure and bright that Castiel found himself drawn to it, and to him, although he had never given much thought to the reason he favored Dean over his brother. It may only have been their relative positions as Good and Evil, as had been planned by his Heavenly family; Dean, the host of Michael, and Sam, the host of Lucifer. 

It had never come to pass. Perhaps it was another test, and it was never meant to.

Regardless, the world after the Apocalypse that wasn't had gained an air of normalcy again. Castiel rode in the backseat of the car on the neverending road trip of the brothers Winchester, still saving people and hunting things after the three of them had chosen free will and saved the world. Dean had argued, afterward, that everyday people still needed saving.

And so they were back on the road, the tires rolling on, and Castiel reflected - not for the first time - that the brothers were like Cain, in their way, destined or doomed to wander the earth for eternity.

***

Life on the American road was not quite the romantic experience promoted in popular culture.

Cars of the Impala's age were not usually driven on road trips, not least because it was difficult or impossible to find the parts in small rural backwater towns. The bench seats were uncomfortable for long distances and the car guzzled gas like there was no tomorrow. Still, it was the closest thing the brothers had to a home, and every time Sam suggested the possibility of shifting to a more modern vehicle with better mileage, Dean would clench his jaw and stare straight ahead as he drove. For Dean, this car was everything. Besides, he distrusted these new cars; more computer than machine, he said. He wouldn't trust a mechanic with his ride anyway, and plugging in a car for diagnostics just seemed ridiculous to him. Sam attempted to reason that cars had been plugged in for diagnostics for decades now, but Dean wouldn't hear it. Most of these arguments were halfhearted, though. Baby, as Dean referred to the Impala, was family. And the Winchesters were irrational when it came to family.

***

"Cas," Dean said. "C'mere. Check this out."

And of course, Cas did, because he would do anything that voice asked him to.

They were standing in some nondescript Spur station on the outskirts of an equally nondescript Midwestern town. Population less than 200, which meant everyone knew everyone. The gas station tried its best at being unique, one of those places that'd been there forever with fish hanging on the walls and an assortment of faded pictures. The usual joke plaques carved out of wood hung on the walls alongside woodcarved clocks for sale. It certainly encouraged a fishing vacation out here, if nothing else.

Dean was standing in front of an enormous display rack filled with all kinds of doughnuts. He let out a low whistle.

"Sure are stocking these places better'n they did when we first started living on the road," Dean said. He covetously stared at a long john.

"You want one, Cas?" Dean asked. Castiel watched his lips, thinking they looked very soft. Dean's bright gaze turned to him when there was no response. "Aw c'mon, we can't all be Sammy with his salad kink."

"It's _Sam_ ," said his brother from somewhere else in the store.

"It's like he's got angelic hearing," said Dean, grinning. Cas couldn't help it; his eyes shone, an approximation of a return grin. Dean shoved him playfully, and Cas felt the heat of his touch after he'd let go. "Whaddaya say, Cas? You want a long john too?"

Castiel narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

"I do not need long underwear, Dean," he intoned. Dean barked a laugh and rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

"No, no," he said. "These things are long johns. Chocolate on the outside, custard on the inside. You gotta try one."

He opened the case and picked out a few different items, making sure to get several long johns.

"Hey Sammy," he said when they went up to pay for the food and gas. "I got you some doughnuts. The ones with the pink sprinkles."

He winked at Cas. Sam made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat.

"It's all right," Dean said. "I don't judge your love of pink, that's what family's for, right?"

The girl at the cash register giggled. Sam paid her and stalked off, grumbling to himself.

Dean caught up with him outside.

"Don't worry," he said. "We'll get food at that diner. Bet they have a salad with croutons and a ton of Thousand Island dressing."

Sam turned to him with a wistful look.

"Do you think so?" he asked.

Dean threw his arms into the air and looked at Cas in exasperation.

"How are we related?" he asked. "We're not related. We can't be. Cas, are we adopted?"

"No," said Castiel.

Dean sighed. 

"C'mon, Sasquatch," he said. "Dinnertime."

***

Castiel had to agree with Sam, as they dug into their salads and Dean stared at them in shocked betrayal. Road food was greasy and cloying. A nice fresh salad was a godsend on the road, and this particular diner had amazing salads for some reason.

Dean looked thrilled when his triple bacon cheeseburger was parked in front of him, and he dove into it with relish. Sam watched him, looking nauseated.

"What do you have against salad, anyway?" Sam asked.

Dean talked with his mouth full.

"Look," he said. "I don't have anything against salad _in particular_. I'm eating a salad right now. See?"

He displayed the lettuce, tomatoes, and onions in his burger. Sam rolled his eyes.

"But on the road, there's usually salad bars," he explained. "And salad bars usually means germs. And germs usually mean the flu, or Norovirus, or something like that. You want to be the one projectile vomiting like _you're_ the demon next time we tangle with something supernatural, you be my guest. I prefer to have the germs cooked out of my food."

Castiel looked down at his salad with newfound suspicion. He was still an angel, but he was concerned about the health of the Winchesters. He couldn't go on surreptitiously healing them whenever they came down with something, or every time Dean's liver gave up the ghost and he got cirrhosis or pancreatitis. (This had already happened several times. Castiel was certain the brothers did not know, nor did they know about his ongoing healing. He wondered what Dean would say if he knew that Castiel had been helping him maintain his weight. Nobody could live on the road like they did and eat like he did while keeping a fit body. Castiel told himself he was doing it for Dean's health and for the safety of the people they were protecting. He did not entertain the idea that Dean's beauty was of interest to Castiel, too.)

"Eat up," Dean encouraged him. "We gotta get on the road if we want to make the motel before sundown."

***

On the road, Cas finally dug one of the long johns out of the bag. Dean was singing along to some old rock song that the angel half-registered in his mind. Sam kept trying to explain that there were new kinds of satellite radio stations and he could pick a mix of things they both liked, but Dean did not respond.

Castiel took a tentative bite out of the long john. It was delicious, and the custard was a new texture and taste for him. He delicately put his tongue into the opening, licking the custard out from inside. 

Dean happened to glance at him in the rearview mirror, swore loudly and nearly ran them into traffic on the other side of the road.

"Jesus!" Sam yelped. "Dean! Watch the road!"

"Sorry," Dean mumbled, sneaking another peek at the angel.

Who was now sucking at the pastry to get all the custard out. Dean swore again under his breath. Castiel looked up and found those green eyes met his in the rearview mirror.

"All right," said Sam, "you're obviously too tired to drive. No, don't you dare argue. I don't want you wrapping us around a telephone pole. Time for you to get some sleep."

Dean did protest, but weakly. They pulled over and swapped sides.

Dean did not even look at Castiel, taking off his jacket and balling it up against the door to lean against. He closed his eyes and fell asleep. 

Castiel swallowed the last of the long john. 

***

Motels were something that puzzled Castiel. Since they were always using stolen credit cards (which, as an angel, he studiously ignored) it didn't make much sense to him that they stayed in rundown places with cracks in the sinks and cockroaches in the cupboards.

"Economy, man," Dean explained, when Castiel had shown him a photo of a beautiful hotel with an infinity pool on the roof. The angel stared at the picture wistfully and in truth spent a lot of time looking at various hotels on the Internet when the brothers weren't paying attention.

"What economy, Dean?" asked Cas. "We use stolen credit cards."

"Habit," said Sam. Dean threw a rolled-up ball of socks at him, which hit him squarely in the forehead.

"Score!" Dean rejoiced. Sam gave him the kind of look Sam always gave him.

"You know, Dean, Cas might have a point," he said. "Garth always gets a nice room after hunts, why can't we do that?"

Dean seemed to have an argument on the tip of his tongue. Then he sat and thought about it.

"You know," he said, as Castiel showed him another photo of a beautiful hotel. "I _am_ getting a little older, coming back from hunts is rough these days. Bad back, you know, and that twinge in my knee."

__

__

Castiel knew full well that none of those things had been true since he'd shown up in their lives and played Winchester family doctor, but if this was what Dean needed to convince himself that they deserved a little luxury in their lives, he was going to keep mum about it.

Instead, he flicked the photoset to the next picture. The buffet. 

It looked a little bit like the Green Room in Heaven, where he'd saved Dean so long ago.

Dean stared at the picture of cheeseburgers and doughnuts on the long table.

After a moment, he nodded decisively.

"Right," he said. "Time to open a new chapter in our lives."

Sam gave Castiel one of the most thankful looks he'd seen on a man that hadn't been praying.

And that was how the Winchesters and their guardian angel made a new habit out of nicer places to stay.

***

The thing about the bunker was that it was stationary.

At first, Dean and Sam loved it. They had never had something like this, at least not since they were children. 

Just like any novelty, however, it wore off. Dean got itchy feet. He was not really a man for the stationary life, no matter how much he'd hoped to be. 

So ultimately, they left, and returned to a life on the road. The road was a part of their very bones, and like a sailor yearns for the sea, they weren't really living until they were back on it again. The bunker was inherited by the new hunters, Jody and Donna, Claire and the rest of the kids. Sam went back, sometimes; he was more a Man of Letters anyway. For the most part, though, the bunker was left behind and forgotten just like all other interludes in their lives.

Dean hadn't been happy with Lisa and Ben. Not only because he didn't really want to be with her, but because he didn't really want to be still. He was a hunter by blood, and in his blood; the desire ran through his veins. There was no life where he would be content without traveling, without fighting. He was a lifer, much like those cowboys he admired so much, and a tiger can't change its stripes.

Sam was less invested in the road. He gravitated more towards research, and health food, and things his brother never really took the time to understand. Yet he found that after all these years it was the only thing that brought him real satisfaction. Sometimes he talked about the future, about retirement; a dog, a wife. Maybe being a contact for hunters, using his research skills, the way Bobby once was for them. But he'd stopped making noises about leaving the road a very long time ago.

***

It was a night in one of the fancy new hotels when it happened.

Each of them had their own rooms now. After a lifetime of no privacy, and then the bunker, their tastes had changed. Now that they knew what they were missing, they weren't going to sacrifice it. They'd sacrificed themselves for the world enough.

Their rooms were adjoining. Old habits die hard, and the Winchesters had a lot of enemies. Safer in numbers. But the privacy, and the luxury, really was a game-changer.

Castiel was stretched out on his bed, flipping through the channels on the beautiful flatscreen television. His room had a balcony, and a view of the park. He was just about to slide into a lazy sort of nap when he sensed a presence in the doorway.

"Hate to say it, but Garth was right," drawled Dean, from where he was leaning against the doorjamb. "Best night of sleep I've had in my life."

Cas blinked at him. Sleep seemed to come easily here too. Although he didn't really need it, he found himself adapting to human habits. It had been a long time since Heaven, after all. 

He smiled up at Dean, the corners of his eyes crinkling with warmth. An approximate smile. He'd never quite gotten used to the concept and when he tried smiling with his teeth he thought it looked quite terrifying, a sort of rictus grin, and so he'd stopped practicing. Dean seemed to recognise it for what it was, though, and smiled back.

He also looked strangely bashful, which was a new experience for Castiel. He'd never seen the man look shy about anything. 

Castiel was sitting up against the headboard. His black socks, beige slacks, and buttondown shirt with the off-kilter tie made him look like any traveling businessman relaxing after a hard day. He often wondered if he should change his outfit, but somehow it seemed disrespectful to Jimmy Novak. After all, a man stays in the clothes he was buried in. 

Not that it mattered, not now. His Father had apparently granted him a body all his own to keep, and though it was nothing like the strange-eyed colossus _Castiel_ really was, he found he'd gotten accustomed to the body.

And now, Dean, here, staring at his body with that look on his face, something Cas couldn't place as he stared back at him in the low glow of the bedside lamp.

Dean rubbed at the short hairs on the back of his neck, a tic he had when he was nervous.

"Dean?" Castiel said, his favorite word.

"Yeah, Cas. I, uh," he said, and then fell silent again. 

He approached the bed. Cas looked up at him. And Cas sat up and away from the bed as Dean crashed down like waves and his angel was there to catch him, always, always, as their lips met and Dean let out a tiny sound, and Cas crushed him to his chest while they kissed, hearts beating a frantic tattoo. 

Cas threw him onto the bed. Dean looked up at him in awe and some terror.

"Mine," Castiel growled. "Mine. Beloved."

He divested himself, and Dean, of clothing. It had been years. It had been moments, now, this, and yet it felt an eternity folding back upon itself forever. This man he'd stitched from stars. Beneath him, staring up at him, worshiping him, and Castiel felt enough time had been wasted already.

Great black wings spread out above him, strong and firm, in a display of power and possession. Dean reached up to them wordlessly, and Castiel allowed himself to be pet.

"Do you want me, Dean Winchester?" Castiel demanded. Dean nodded. "Out loud, Dean."

"Yes," Dean said. It was barely there, but he said it.

So Castiel took Dean there in that hotel room in some random town, feathers shaking, wings firmly spread as he moved in the man he had wanted for what seemed like the entirety of his long life. And Dean...

Dean was beautiful.

Oh, he had human beauty, that much was evident in his actions and the way people responded to him on a hunt, or in a bar. But this - the glow of his soul, the sweetness of his abject surrender - was far more beautiful still to a creature carved of love and obedience, of soul and spirit, and the eternal songs of the spheres.

And when Dean cried out, at the end, Castiel lost himself too; he closed his eyes against the outpouring of blue that threatened to engulf the room. Castiel's first real human passion, but it was the love in the lull afterward that meant the two of them were irrevocably changed that night.

Castiel never could remember the road, the hotel, the name of the town. After all, there had been thousands. But he knew that road had led them here, breath slowing, his peaceful heartbeat as Dean lay his head on his chest.

He'd expected something like terror, some kind of excuses, all kinds of posturing. But no. Perhaps Dean had matured. Because he told Sam right away and they were together and that was that.

So easy, Castiel wondered why he hadn't tried it before. 

But then he thought, like so many things, this was something he could only have in the fulness of time.

Dean asked, one night, if he had damned Castiel. Made him fall. Like his brothers and sisters, shooting stars across the night sky.

"No," Castiel had told him, kissing his hair. "No. Love would never make us fall. We are angels, and God is love. Go to sleep, beloved."

And just like it had been so easy for Dean, it was easy, too, for Castiel.

He lost nothing in loving Dean. 

In fact, Heaven shone on him even more. 

They were together, Castiel told Heaven, and that was that. He'd expected banishment. Exile.

He was welcomed home with open arms, just like anyone who has gone away to get married. 

It was, of course, true that love was not a reason for falling, but he'd expected some kind of punishment for falling in love with the Michael Sword.

The angels, it seemed, did not see it that way. He'd left a Heaven fond of smiting and returned to a Heaven setting its pearls in an atmosphere of love. 

Castiel was an old warrior. But he had changed. So had Dean.

Heaven, he supposed, could change, too.

***

The years wound on, just like that ribbon of road. The brothers never left each other again, and the threats they faced had become run-of-the-mill ghost hunts. This suited them fine, as they'd had enough apocalypses for their many lifetimes. It was good to get back into hunting, just like Dean had always said it was good to work on Baby. The Impala, he said, reminded him of things of the Earth, machines, solid and steady things dependable in their workings. 

Castiel looked at the man in the grease-stained shirt and the grass-green eyes and thought Dean was the Earth to his sky. He told him so.

"Sap," said Dean, but his cheeks colored pink all the same.

As all roads must one day come to an end, so it was with the Winchesters. Sam told Dean out of the blue one day that he'd always had a problem with carsickness and maybe Dean could go on a hunt with Castiel. The two of them showed affection in small ways, their pinkies hooked together for a brief moment, or a quick brush against each other's hands through the Impala's open window. They hunted together without Sam on occasion, so this was not strange on the face of it.

What was strange was that upon their return, Sam invited them to his new house, beaming at them from the porch.

"You bought a _house_?" Dean asked, incredulous. "When did you even find the time?"

"It was supposed to be a surprise," Sam said. "We'll have a place to live together."

The house was beautiful, and large enough for the three of them. Sam was so proud.

Dean smiled at his brother, and he looked around the house with him, congratulating Sam on a great purchase.

But Sam, who knew Dean better than anyone - even Castiel, the angel had to admit with a jealous pang - sensed something was wrong.

"You're not staying, are you," Sam said in a flat voice.

Dean sighed, caught out.

"Sammy," he said, and before his brother could correct him, "Sam. Look. We did this with the bunker, and I got cabin fever. I had to get out. That was twenty years ago. I'm just not made for this kind of life. I don't want it. I'm sorry."

"Well, I do," said Sam. 

They stared at each other. Castiel knew instinctively that this was it. 

"We've had a good run," Dean finally said. "Hell, a better run than most siblings. And you know I lo - you're important to me. But we've always wanted different things. So maybe it really is time to go our separate ways."

"It doesn't have to be forever," Sam said. "You can visit anytime you want. But...you're really going to let me go? Just like that?"

Dean shrugged.

"What can I say?" he said. "It's gonna be hard. But I also gotta see that you need other things in your life. Just like me n' Cas found each other. I wouldn't be happy staying here, but you wouldn't be happy if I forced you to stay on the road."

Sam nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah."

Dean seemed to think about something for a while.

"Honestly," he said. "I just hope you can forgive me for dragging you back into all of this all those years ago. You wanted something else - a different life, and I didn't listen. I was as bad as Dad back then, and I'm not proud of it."

"Dean, don't beat yourself up," said Sam. "You were worried, and you had every right to be. And you know what? I've had one hell of a life to show for it."

"Yeah, you do," said Dean. "But maybe now it's time for me to let you have your own life instead of being selfish. Time for research, for studying. Maybe you could even be a lawyer, like you wanted before."

Sam laughed.

"I think that particular ship has sailed," Sam said. "But that's okay. Maybe I can help, like I wanted to before; be a research contact, like Bobby used to be."

"Maybe," said Dean. He clapped his brother on the shoulder. "You keep in touch, Sam. Me n' Cas, we gotta go."

"You sure you don't even want to stay the night?" Sam asked. "I could make dinner."

"I'm not having salad for dinner," Dean grinned, but there were tears in his voice and his eyes. "Sam. I can't walk away from this, from you, if you keep this up. I gotta walk away, and I gotta do it right now before I take back everything I said."

Sam nodded, quick and sharp.

"Understood," he said. He abruptly pulled Dean into a strong hug. "Don't be a stranger. You too, Cas."

Sam hugged Castiel too. The brothers shared another look, as if Castiel wasn't even there.

"Cas," Dean said. Castiel stepped forward. He could see that Dean wouldn't leave unless he had some kind of assistance.

"Yes, we need to go, Dean," Castiel said. Dean turned away from his brother, and they walked outside together, down the wooden stairs.

"Wave at him," Dean said. "I can't do it."

Castiel turned to see Sam in the doorway and waved. Dean raised a hand, but didn't turn around.

The tears on his cheeks were evidence enough of the reason why.

***

But time went on, and things got better, as frequently happens with time.

Dean found that he was enjoying Castiel as a hunting partner, and as a partner in general. The hotels they stayed in frequently involved the honeymoon suite, and the luck of being in their profession meant that they had many, many honeymoons. They still visited Sam from time to time, and although it hurt Dean to leave him, every time it hurt less and less until it had become their new reality. He didn't need to lose his brother. He didn't need to lose his angel. He didn't need to lose his job. He could have all of these things in this configuration in which all of them were happy with their lives. One day, when they went to Sam's, there was a collie dog on the porch. The next time, there was a woman, Sarah. The next time, she was pregnant. Dean would be an uncle. 

Sometimes, the monsters still came to call. But Sam was still a hunter. He just had to take care of his own, now.

Castiel saw that Dean understood all of this in ways he never would have as a younger man.

And in the Impala, Dean hung the old pendant that sought God over the rearview mirror.

He reached across the bench seat and twined his fingers with Castiel's.

They both sang together to the rock on the radio, and shared a smile; Dean's thousand-watt to Castiel's subtle lift of the eyes, both of them wearing more wrinkles now, but both with their eyes bright and shining, the blue of the heavens and the bright green of the Earth in the spring.

And on and on wound that great ribbon of road through America, as they hunted side by side.

***

First, it was one gravestone.

Then two.

The lonely little cemetery, unremarked by man, and two funerals with none in attendance but a mysterious man with ice-blue eyes and a cheap tan trenchcoat. 

The first, he had stood sentinel, as was his duty. _Young, to go like that_ , muttered the coroner. He had offered a sharp nod. There were no more tricks to be had, no more Death to cheat. Dean Winchester was gone, and Castiel thanked the universe, and his long-lost father, for small favors. He'd held steady, steadier than he had expected, when Dean had gone. Young, yes, but not so young as most hunters. He'd had a wild ride of a life. Castiel bit back those memories, pleasant days, thrilling nights of shared whispers and the slide of skin on skin.

He couldn't let himself fall apart. Sam needed him. Dean would never forgive him if he abandoned the one thing Dean loved most in this world.

And so he and Sam hunted, in the same old car. One day Led Zeppelin came on the radio, and Sam flashed him a tight smile, snapping the radio off. 

The Impala went into storage. They found themselves something modern, good gas mileage. Sensible. They never spoke about it. And yet Castiel still had a yearning, for those bench seats and the low rumble of the car. For Dean, and his off-key singing to the music on the radio.

Time marched on, as it always had and always would. This little sliver of Castiel's lifetime was so, so short, and yet it filled his heart in ways all the other billions of years had not. For a brief second, he had been individual. Loved. No longer just one of the Host, but passionately loved for who and what he was, for his own self. He hadn't even really known he had a self until he'd met those defiant green eyes in that long-ago barn, lightning flashing, black shadows of wings, of his power, dwarfing the sigils on the walls. He hadn't known, then, what this man would become to him; what would become of him, as he slowly fell like the first leaves of autumn lead to the trees laid bare. And so he felt with Dean; laid bare, exposed, and loved all the same.

One day, of course, it was Sam's turn. He was buried next to his brother in the same little cemetery. No one would know that this was the cemetery where the world almost ended, and Castiel felt there was a certain poetic justice to this being the Winchesters' final resting place. 

And, he decided, ultimately his own.

Castiel climbed onto the stone that read DEAN WINCHESTER. He laid his palm against the smooth, cool black of the stone as his breath puffed out white in the crisp air. Great black wings spread from his back, shading the stone beneath him. One wing stretched out to shade the stone beside him, offering shelter and protection to Sam and Dean in the wind, rain, and snow, just as he always had.

And there he stayed, as the seasons turned gently around him, covering him with leaves, with a crown of snow. Years passed, and Castiel was motionless; decades fell away from him, and in the passage of time he had turned to stone, or something very like it.

The occasional visitors to the cemetery would comment on him, what an odd choice for a headstone, an angel in a trenchcoat. They wondered aloud about the Winchesters, and why they were buried side by side. They wondered at the hollow look of sadness on the angel's face, and they mused about the reason the angel's hand was pressed flat against the stone. It was one of the more curious graveyard ornaments, even making its way into books for tourists interested in the strange and out of the ordinary.

So it was inevitable that one day, a hunter would come calling.

The woman stood in front of the grave, smiling. She was elderly, a rope of braid over her shoulder, but there was something in her stance that spoke of steel and an unexpected strength.

"Figured you'd forget me, Castiel," she said. "But then, you always were a Winchester. They tend to forget their third wheel. Adam, that brother of theirs? Still in hell, as far as I know. Strange for a pair who were always about family."

She walked up to him and put her hand on his, frozen in stone.

"Figures you'd forget your own family," she murmured. "But I forgive you. I know how you feel about them - about him."

She peered up into his face, impassive, dead-eyed.

"But the time for grieving is over," she told him. "We need you, Castiel. The demons have returned. We've fought as well as we can, but - well, I'm getting on in years."

She smiled again, and indicated herself. Castiel did not respond.

"It's time," she said. "If you loved these men, you know what they would do. They wouldn't sit idle while humans suffered."

A tear tracked down her cheek.

"Saving people, hunting things," she recited. "The family business. Not so much family as all that, but - as _your_ family, I'm asking you to come back to us."

She squeezed his hand, and looked at him one last time.

"I know it's hard," she said. "Just like it's always been hard to look at you and not see the loss of my own father. But you owe us, Castiel - you owe _me_."

But the angel did not move.

The woman sighed.

"Think about it?" she asked, and turned away, her footsteps crunching in the snow.

***

A while later, the snow on the angel was melting.

His eyes blinked. Once. Twice.

The stone moved, and his lips formed a word.

"Claire?"

***

One night, a man in a faded old trenchcoat showed up and asked for the garage to be opened. He had a key in his hand, somewhat rusted with age.

The door rolled up. The long dark lines of the Impala glowed in the low light.

The man got into the car, and after a few tries, the engine turned over and let out a low growl.

It recognized family.

On the rearview mirror hung a necklace with a familiar pendant. Castiel touched it, and his mind was filled with green eyes, a rakish grin, an old rock song on the radio.

He let go.

The car left the garage, and disappeared down the street, turning off the exit ramp to the highway. 

He had work to do.


End file.
